


Pooka Boo

by Redrikki



Category: Dark Angel
Genre: Crack, Gen, Hallucinations, Heist, Mental Health Issues, Mythical Beings & Creatures
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-31
Updated: 2014-05-31
Packaged: 2018-01-27 19:36:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1720139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Redrikki/pseuds/Redrikki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maybe Ben’s hallucinations started out random and fluffy too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pooka Boo

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [da_halloween](http://community.livejournal.com/da_halloween/13165.html) Halloween prompt 35

It started with a sandwich. It was a real peanut butter and jelly sandwich made with real peanuts and real what ever the hell jelly was made out of. Some old lady with a whole plateful of them had given it to Alec when he delivered her package. He stopped in Kerry Park to enjoy it before heading back to the drudgery of gainful employment. The sandwich was crunchy and gooey and really, really good.

Alec was six bites in when he noticed the horse. The cops sometimes patrolled the park on them because nothing said imposing authority figure quite like an armed man on horseback, but this one didn’t have a saddle. It was sooty black with weirdly luminous golden eyes and was staring at Alec’s sandwich, at least as much as an any animal with eyes on opposite sides of its head could be said to stare at anything.

“Want some?” Alec asked jokingly. The horse made a horsey sound and nodded its head like it understood English. Alec laughed and offered up the sandwich. The horse took a surprisingly dainty bite leaving behind grass-stained teeth-marks and horse germs. Alec frowned down at what was left of his tasty tip. “You know, on second thought, why don’t you finish the rest?”

“Much obliged,” said the horse and trotted off with Alec’s sandwich.

Alec sat staring blankly on the park bench and waited for reality to catch up. It was a horse and horses didn’t talk except, of course, the famous Mr. Ed and Alec was pretty sure that was just dubbing over crappy 1960s special effects. It must have been the sandwich, Alec decided. There must have been some sort of hallucinogen hidden in its deliciously gooey depths like the hash in Sketchy’s Christmas brownies. It was a good thing he’d gotten rid of it, Alec thought as he pedaled off. He wondered absently what LSD would do to a horse.

*****

The next time was a little harder to write off, even with the alcohol. Alec had gotten up to go to the bathroom at the Crash and when he came back there was a coal-black rabbit helping itself to the dregs of Alec’s scotch. It’s long ears twitched with every noise but no one seemed to bother it or even notice that it's existence. “Hey there,” Alec said, sliding back onto his bar stool and pulling the rabbit onto his lap. “I’m pretty sure this stuff isn’t good for bunnies.”

The rabbit turned and glared, its golden eyes filled with something that looked suspiciously like contempt. “Shows what you know,” it snapped in a surprisingly deep voice for such a small animal. Startled, Alec jerked backwards, colliding with someone behind him just as the rabbit kicked him hard enough to draw blood through Alec’s jeans and hopped back up onto the bar to finish off his drink.

“Ow,” Alec yelped staring down at his lap as blood welled up through the tears in his fourth-favorite pair of jeans. “Fluffy son of a bitch!”

“ _Excuse me?!_ ” said Original Cindy, standing behind him, hand on hip and looking about ready to clock him with the empty beer pitcher in her hand. “What did you just call me?”

Alec held up his hands in surrender. “Not you,” he explained. “The damn rabbit just” - he gestured to the scratches on his lap only to see that they weren’t there. He looked sharply to the bar, but just his empty glass sat there, alone and un-molested. There was no rabbit. There had never been a rabbit. Alec’s chest ached and his vision swam like he was back at Manticore, straining for breath at the bottom of the tank. There was no rabbit.

“Boo?” Alec jumped as a gentle hand touched his shoulder. “Boo, you alright?”

Original Cindy looked down at him with an expression normally reserved for Max and Alec took a deep breath. There was no rabbit. For all he knew, Ben had started out with random, fluffy and seemingly harmless hallucinations too. There was no rabbit, but Original Cindy was waiting for the right response so she could get her beer and move on with her night. Alec stretched a close approximation of smile on his face. “I’m always alright.”

*****

“Are you going to eat that?” the rabbit asked from were it perched on the arm of the break-room couch at Jam Pony, eying Alec’s apple hungrily.

Alec took a large, pointed bite and glared back. The damn talking animals had been following him for a week and a half now, the dark horse stalking him on the streets and the dusky rabbit invaded his personal space indoors. Despite the fact that the only thing rabbits and horses had in common was their status as herbivores, Alec suspected that they were both manifestations of the same basic psychosis. After Ben, the doctors back at Manticore had spent six months trying to cut out the potential crazy. Clearly, they missed a spot. The animals hadn’t done anything except annoy the crap out of him and try to steal his food, but he was sure that any minute now they’d start advocating random homicide and amateur dentistry. 

Max’s “Hey” broke up Alec’s impromptu staring contest with the rabbit and sent him jumping half a foot into the air. Max snorted, flopping down on the couch beside him, and Alec felt like kicking himself. He couldn’t believe he’d let the damn things get to him like that. He was Alec now and Alec was smooth, cool and in control, not the type of person to freak out just because talking animals were stalking him. 

Max studied him with something that might have been concern. Or possibly amusement. It was hard to tell with her since her default facial expression was set to pout. She raised an eyebrow (and pouted). “Seriously, what is your deal?”

“I-” _I’m alright_ , he started to say but he really, really wasn’t and if anyone would get that it would be Max. Since he’d found out about Ben, Alec had been living with the specter of madness, but Max had been there. She would understand just how bad this could get and how dangerous he could become. Alec took a deep, bracing breath and began talking. “I think I’m going crazy. I keep seeing these talking animals and so far all they talk about is food but it’s only a matter of time until-”

Alec broke off at the sight of her face. He was having no trouble reading that expression. Max didn’t look understanding; she looked like he was some nasty thing she found on the bottom of her shoe and was thinking of putting back on the ground so she could stomp on it some more. “I don’t believe you,” she hissed and stomped off.

Alec groaned and slumped back. This was why he didn’t open up to people. “Well, that didn’t go well,” the rabbit said sympathetically and hopped into Alec’s lap to nibble at his neglected apple. Alec moved to shove the damn thing off his lap but somehow wound up petting it instead. The velvet-y softness of his hallucination’s ears sent shivers of fear up Alec’s spine.

*****

“What ya’ doing?” the rabbit asked, gazing up at him innocently with big gold eyes like some sick parody of a Disney film. Alec did his best to ignore the thing and tightened his grip on the rope. Below him, Max was dangling in front of the safe, her legs stretched out behind her to keep from touching the pressure-sensitive floor. It been a week since the couch incident, and she’d only just started talking to him again, mostly because the latest Eyes Only mission was a two person job. Somehow, Alec didn’t think Max would appreciated it if he got them both caught because he took time out to talk to his imaginary friend.

They were there getting super-secret disks from some evil and paranoid industrialist. Honestly, Alec had tuned out all the usual self-righteous justifications for the break-in and just focused on the technical details. It wasn’t just the pressure-sensitive floor, there were the usual assortment of guards, fences, security lights and cameras. This perch at the skylight above the guy’s office would have been impossible for anyone but an X-5 to get to and, with the slant of the roof and Max’s surprisingly heavy ass, it was a lot harder than he so effortlessly made it look. 

The rabbit hopped over to the edge, not bothered by the steep slope of the roof in the slightest, and looked into the room below. It whistled appreciatively. “That’s a long, long way down.” 

Alec grunted in response. Max had been working on the safe for forever, or at least 15 minutes, and the whole thing was getting less fun by the second. There was a quiet “yes” and a click down below as Max finally cracked the damn thing and Alec shifted his stance to get ready to haul her back up. After a few minutes pause while Max presumably emptied the safe of disks and any other valuables, she gave a tug on the rope and Alec started to pull her back up. 

Alec worked quickly and smoothly, pulling hand over hand and dropping the slack behind him. The top of Max’s head was just beginning to peak through the skylight when there was a sudden and unexpected give in the rope that sent Alec reeling backwards and Max plummeting like a rock. Alec lunged forward to grab her, or at least the trailing edge of the rope, but only made it in time to watch Max hit the marble bust on the corner of the desk and then the floor with a resounding thunk. And then the alarm went off. 

“Uh, oh,” said the rabbit. “Looks like your girlfriend’s in trouble.”

“She’s not my-” snapped Alec before he could stop himself. Max wasn’t moving, they were about to get caught, and he was arguing relationship semantics with a figment of his own imagination. Well, it ended now. He was a soldier, damn it, and soldiers got their shit together and finished the mission. Decision made, Alec slithered out of his belaying harness, nudged the rabbit aside with his foot, and jumped down through the skylight. He landed in a crouch near where Max lay sprawled. He felt the impact all the way up his spine, but there were days when it was good to be an X-5. Like the cats their DNA came from, they landed on their feet, well, mostly anyway. 

Alec crawled over towards Max’s still form. The bag with the loot had fallen off her on the way down and was lying a few feet away. There was blood on the broken bust next to the desk and more oozing from the wound on the back of Max’s head. “Hey, hey,” Alec shook her and patted her face. “Come on. Wake up.” The alarm was screaming and no doubt the guards were mobilizing; they did not have time for this. 

Max’s eyes fluttered open. “Wha’ happened?” She groaned.

“The rope broke,” Alec told her as he haled her up. 

“You forgot to check it,” Max declared, glaring angrily at him in a blurry sort of way. Alec just rolled his eyes as he steered her towards the door. He’d forgotten he was the source of everything wrong with the world. Okay, the whole paint-on-the-virus-notes thing was totally his fault, but it wasn’t even his damn rope. It was a good thing she was so hot and he was so in over his head out in the world or he would have ditched her bitchy ass months ago. 

They were almost at the door when someone pointedly cleared their throat behind them. “Hey,” called the rabbit. “Disks.”

Right, Alec had forgotten about the bag. He darted back to it, only to turn back in time to see Max wavering on her feet. Alec blurred back to her before she could faceplant on the tasteful Persian rug. They were so screwed. Concussions were a bitch, even for an X-5, but at least they healed quickly. Just not in time for them to get out of here.

The alarms were starting to give Alec a headache, and probably weren’t exactly doing wonders for Max either. Under their steady blaring, he could hear the sound of yelling men and stomping feet, all headed towards the third floor office and, if the guards were smart, the exits too. Alec and Max had left their bikes just outside the fence behind the rose garden at the rear of the house. Alec mentally reviewed the blueprints Logan had provided and headed for the servants’ stairs that would take them to the garden door. He dragged Max down a left-hand corridor and ran smack into a guard coming the opposite way. 

“Oh, shit,” Alec yelped, as Max and the guard went sprawling on the floor. The man went for his gun as Alec hauled Max across his shoulder in a fireman’s carry and blurred back around the corner and down the hall. Max squawked and smacked him in protest, but Alec didn’t put her down. The concussion was clearly making her unstable on her feet and the guard behind them was already calling for reinforcements. She just better not vomit down his back. 

He ran back towards the office, trying to reach the main stairway before that was blocked too, but it was already too late. Three men were rushing towards them, guns drawn. The first shot whizzed over Alec’s head and he kicked down the nearest door, ran to the window and jumped.

They hit the ground hard from three stories up amidst a rain of broken glass and window frame. Somehow, it was Max how found her feet first, swaying unsteadily. “What the hell were you thinking?” She shouted, gesturing to the house. “We’re on the wrong side!” 

There was shouting from the house and Alec looked up to see a cluster of guards in the window they’d jumped from. They were out of the range of a handgun down here, but they needed to move now. “Come on,” he said, grabbing her hand. They could still go the long way around the property to the bikes, try to loose the guards in the gardens. He turned to run and bounced off the dusky flank of a dark, familiar horse.

“Need a ride?” asked the horse, wiggling it’s back invitingly.

Alec moved to avoid the animal and found his path blocked again. Stupid, creepily corporeal hallucination. They didn’t have time for this; they needed to get away. “Gee,” Alec grumbled, “I’d love a ride. Too bad you’re not real.”

“Alec,” Max snapped, clearly losing patience. “Who are you talking to? Let’s just take the damn horse and get out of here.”

She could see the horse? It was actually there? The horse’s golden eye met his as it slowly nodded its head. It was real and Alec wasn’t crazy. Alec gave Max a boost and swung himself up behind her for what would turn out to be the wildest ride of their lives.

*****

Max threw up in the elevator at Logan’s apartment building. Between the lingering nausea from the ride and the smell, Alec had to take deep breaths through his mouth to keep from joining her. As it was, whatever cleaning staff this place employed was in for a crappy morning. The rabbit accompanying them shared a look with Alec and wrinkled its little rabbit nose in disgust. 

“How did it go?” Logan asked as they strolled into his apartment. He took in their disheveled appearance and the bits of encrusted vomit still clinging to the corners of Max’s mouth and his expression grew concerned. “What happened? Are you alright?”

“Concussion,” Max explained as she flopped down on the couch, careful to avoid contaminating Logan’s furniture with her blood. “It’s clearing up, but you might want to hold your breath on the elevator.” 

Logan wheeled himself over to make concerned noises and fuss without touching her. Alec rolled his eyes and left the two lovebirds to their bizarre mating ritual, or non-mating ritual as the case may be. Concussion and lost bikes aside, this had been a good night. They’d gotten Eyes Only’s disks, a bag full of what felt like cash and jewelry they could split sixty-forty, and, best of all, conclusive proof that Alec wasn’t crazy. 

Alec sauntered into the kitchen and rifled through Logan’s fancy fridge. There was pasta in a pot on the stove, but that wasn’t really rabbit food. He pawed through the veggie crisper. “You like carrots, right?” he asked, offering one out to his not-so-imaginary friend. 

“I love carrots.”


End file.
